Foreunners, wilderness, honey and wild locust ......

 This second Sunday of Advent we are called to think about forerunners.

These first verses of Marks Gospel are almost staccato, rapid fire, urgently proclaimed, none of the long drawn out genealogies of Matthew and Luke or the cosmic theology of St John.

It's almost as if we are receiving the Gospel by telegram or twitter.

Here we have it:

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

No apologies, no dissimulation, no reservation.

Right from the get go we are told, this news is GOOD NEWS, and it is good because this Jesus is the Son of God.

I was confirmed in the parish church in Stoke on Trent when I was 16. 

The dedication of that Church was "St Peter ad Vincula"

I have over the years been told, and been reminded, that Mark was in all probability Peter's amanuensis, he visited Peter in Jail, he wrote down much of what he learned about Jesus and his life from Peter and all of this testimony from the Apostle in Chains and there is here almost an echo of St Peter describing the time before he was called and responded to Jesus invitation to forgo his fishing and become a 'fisher of men'.

There is almost an 'of course, of course' about todays Gospel.

The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Of course!

And then straight on to Isaiah:

See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Prepare the way of the Lord make his paths straight.

Of course!

And then John the Baptist appears, the forerunner, in Camel hair, in the desert, eating wild honey and locusts.

Of course!

There is a drama to the story here and it is possible to imagine the echoes of Peter's testimony shining through Mark's words even though the events described happened before Peter's calling you can almost hear the breathlessness:

Good News, the beginning, God's Son, just as Isaiah prophesied, a messenger, a voice crying in the wilderness, make way, it is the way of the Lord, make the twisting paths straight.

Forerunners are often difficult characters.

When I lived in the USA I remember my daughter coming home from her school, Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, full of excitement and enthusiam because that day Jesse Jackson had visited the school and addressed the student body. 

She had found his words uplifting and inspiring. 

Jesse Jackson was a forerunner, he ran for President of the US in 1984 and 1988 and was seen in tears in 2008 at the Inauguration ceremony for Barack Obama.

Jackson was often a difficult commentator in Obama's presidency but then again we might usefully recall John's message to Jesus when he was imprisoned by Herod, 'Are you he that should come or should we look for another?'

If forerunners feature in this Gospel the other striking feature is the wilderness.

The wilderness is where the people of Israel wandered for 40 years, as Bob Marley sang, for black people and those enslaved, their wilderness has lasted 400 years.

The wilderness was not a place meant for human habitation it was place to be conquered and defeated but how many wildernesses are we called to wander through in our search for a saviour, one who will lead us to safety, after all we are currently wandering through a wilderness created by a pandemic that has removed all our safe places and left us at the mercy of a virus that makes no allowance for age or gender.

Whether it is busses in Manchester, Oases in the desert or vaccines in 2020, you wait awhile and three come along at once.

Biblically the African American theologian Dolores Williams has described the wilderness as a place of struggle and spirit, it is both problematic and promising.

We may find ourselves in a wilderness place right now, but there are hopeful and encouraging signs, the pandemic may feel like an existential crisis for the Church at large as well as for St John's, Shotley but there are signs of hope and possibility, our new zoom service led by Alec, our Advent adventure with Trish, our ways of meeting in both Church and on Whypay have not only held us together in fellowship it has in so many ways been conducive to uplifting our spirits and strengthening our religious life.

The good news we hear consistently like a drum beat through Advent is the good news of Jesus as we look forward to and anticipate his Nativity.

Each Sunday during Advent we reflect on the messengers and forerunners and next week we will focus more intently on John Baptist, but for now with Mark's urgent proclamation we are content to echo the news that God has taken our flesh upon him in Jesus pointing us toward liberation in this life and in the life to come.

We give thanks for the forerunners whose work has brought justice, hope and relief to the suffering, we give thanks for their ministries and name those amongst us also pointing us to future possibilities whose work in the wilderness continues to bring blessings to God's people.






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